My friend Suki has made a new film / installation about life in the city, using footage from around London and interviews with various urbanites (including me – fame at last!). Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk is part of Free To Air, a four-year programme of commissions and events loosely organised around the idea of urban freedom.

The installation is showing at 198 Contemporary Arts in SW9 from 14 September to 19 October. There’s a private view on Monday night – email me if you’d like an invite.

The gallery says:

A London of fast-blinking lights and speeding commuters, where cars and trains leave luminous comet-trails marking their passage through the night, and where individuals reflect on freedom in the urban metropolis, or seek escape from the repetitive habits and conditions it enforces.

Inspired by ideas of freedom of expression in contemporary society, Suki Chan’s new video installation is an impressionistic study of London’s diverse population … Chan’s work weaves together a series of evocative video portraits highlighting people’s different responses to the hubbub of London life. Groups of skaters, unimpeded by traffic, move freely through the twilight city, tracing an intuitive map of the metropolis. Nigerian security guards gatekeeping a deserted high-rise office block compare the ‘freedom’ of London with their rhythms and aspirations of their former life. While city commuters embody the regularity of everyday urban existence.

I’d recommend going even if I wasn’t in it – Suki’s film work is always very beautiful to look at. In the meantime, or if you’re not in town, you can watch some excerpts here.

As Tony Travers suggests, we might see a lot more of this if David Cameron wins the next General Election. So will it work?

Future Shape is a work in progress. The Council’s latest thinking is here; the original plans are here. Some immediate challenges emerge from these.

First, the ‘budget airline approach’ doesn’t really transfer to local government. The typical local authority provides hundreds of goods and services. Airlines typically offer four or five – flights, insurance, car rental, hotels, meals (plus optional customer service). And shouldn’t I be able to set up a rival Council offering a better deal – free bus tickets or lower taxes, maybe? Plus new and improved Councillors?

Second, there are well-known drawbacks to outsourcing as a business strategy. Direct costs are likely to fall. But principal-agent problems – like contract-setting and monitoring – may then raise indirect costs, particularly if privatisation is part of a money-saving drive.

Third, there are some unworked-out tensions. How to achieve ‘shrinking the organisation’, ‘more personalised services’ and behaviour change? How much say do I get about improving my health if the Council has already cut back on fitness centres, for example?